Yellowstone Visitor Dies After Falling Into Hot Spring

A 23-year-old man who walked off a boardwalk and slipped and fell into a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park has died, rangers said on Wednesday.

The man, Colin Nathaniel Scott, of Portland, Ore., had walked about 225 yards away from established trails near Porkchop Geyser on Tuesday. His sister saw him slip and fall into Norris Geyser Basin, a thermal feature at the park in Wyoming, and reported the accident, Yellowstone officials said in a statement.

Charissa Reid, a spokeswoman for Yellowstone, said in an email that “it was determined that there were no remains to recover,” and that the search for Mr. Scott’s body was suspended late Wednesday afternoon.

Ms. Reid, the spokeswoman, said in an interview Wednesday that she had noticed an uptick in people straying from trails and approaching animals this year, caused, in part, by the sheer number of park visitors. Last year, Yellowstone reported a record four million visitors and is likely to meet or exceed that number this year, she said.

“The rules in the park aren’t just arbitrary,” Ms. Reid said. “They’re really here to protect people who are visiting the park and the things that they’re here to see.”

On Wednesday, park officials said parts of the basin area could remain closed as rangers completed their investigation. Norris Geyser Basin is the oldest and hottest of the park’s thermal areas, and below-surface temperatures have reached up to 459 degrees.

Visitors can walk more than two miles of trails and boardwalks that snake through the basin, bringing them close to geysers, steam vents and acidic water. Some boardwalks over Yellowstone hot springs do not have guardrails, and more visitors have died in them than in any other natural feature.

Since 1890, there have been 22 fatalities involving thermal waters in Yellowstone, Ms. Reid said. The last recorded death was on Aug. 22, 2000, when Sara Hulphers, 20, of Oroville, Wash., died after she fell into a hot spring and received third-degree burns.

On June 6, a father and son suffered burns in the Upper Geyser Basin after walking off the designated trail in the thermal area, officials said.

“We extend our sympathy to the Scott family,” Dan Wenk, the park’s superintendent, said in a statement. “This tragic event must remind all of us to follow the regulations and stay on boardwalks when visiting Yellowstone’s geyser basins.”